I want to build a real-time data API using SignalR on the server. I will be building a web client that will connect with the API the "usual way".
However, I would like 3rd parties to also be able to connect to this API. These clients may be web clients or other platforms such as Windows, Mac, iOS, etc. Ideally, they'd just be able to connect via plain websockets and be totally agnostic of whether SignalR is in use on the server or not.
It seems that there are a lot of libraries out there for clients on different platforms (Swift, Objective-C, Java/Android, c++, etc) that would allow them to connect to my API. Another approach (that some of these libraries use) is to embed a hidden web view. Either way it's quite a bit to impose on the 3rd parties. It needs to be simpler.
Is there a way to write a web application (for example) that only uses standard websocket calls and talks directly to my SignalR server without needing to include any SignalR specific scripts as dependencies? Can a non-web client do the same (i.e. make standard websocket calls, with no embedded web view)?
Basically, I would like the effort 3rd parties need to go through to be no greater than if I decide to make a vanilla websocket API and avoid signalR entirely.
No. You can´t do that currently. But that will be possible in the next version of SignalR (Asp.NET Core Sockets) according to this video. The first beta release is planned for mid 2017.
UPDATE
It seams that it´s indeed possible with some workarounds. Take a look at this link.
Related
I want to create realtime notification
I dont want use node js
by the way I have ajax notification .
Its load 1s 1 time working Its right way
There are many ways to achieved real-time notification goal. One of the most famous and easy to use library for implementing more effectively notification scenario is SignalR.
According to Asp.net definition:
ASP.NET SignalR is a new library for ASP.NET developers that makes developing real-time web functionality easy. SignalR allows bi-directional communication between server and client. Servers can now push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available. SignalR supports Web Sockets, and falls back to other compatible techniques for older browsers. SignalR includes APIs for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), grouping connections, and authorization.
See:
SignalR , SignalR.net
I currently developing a multi tenant saas application using asp web api. The api will be published and consumed by 3rd party application. My question is regarding versioning. I'm struggling to find a way to build the api so that when i updated the api, it wont make 3rd party app that uses the api to stop working. I've seen many api append the version no into the url. But that means that i have to keep old version api until all 3rd party app has been upgraded and use the latest api. I also have to update the old api to adapt to database change. That seems like a lot of work. How do big companies solve this problem?
There is no easy way around this; you will have to do the work to support old versions as long as your customers are using them.
Adopting a RESTful approach in the first place, and avoiding 'fat controllers' may help reduce the pain but beyond that every old API call will need to call into your new service layer and will need to return the results in the format your clients expect.
I'm struggling to find a way to build the api so that when i updated the api, it wont make 3rd party app that uses the api to stop working. I've seen many api append the version no into the url. But that means that i have to keep old version api until all 3rd party app has been upgraded and use the latest api.
No one, absolutely no one has researched, built, versioned and maintained APIs more than NetFlix - not externally but internally. They used explicit versioning (e.g. URL) in their APIs and maintained multiple versions of the same API and got their clients move along by providing incentives (new features). This is also something that can be built into your SLA, e.g. you guarantee support of particular version only for 12 months.
This is a very controversial topic and you will hear people suggesting implicit versioning (e.g. by media type etc). Feel free to listen to those but pragmatism favours explicit and purism favours implicit.
Good morning,
I am going to write a web service and I am not sure which framework would suit the situation best. I understand what Node and .Net are good at.
The client will call the services at the following stages:
App loads up - user logins in via Facebook API.
User can create an "entity". This entity will be stored in a database (SQL for .Net/ Azure table for Node) and also posted to a Facebook application (timeline stuff). User can make changes to this at any time.
User can browse Facebook Friends (Facebook API again).
Changes to the entity will be pushed to all users who have "joined" the same entity (SignalR .net/Socket.io Node).
That is the skeleton of the web services, there may be more Facebook calls or CRUD operations. Which Framework will handle this best?
Many thanks.
Aside from the mentioned WebAPI, also consider the excellent ServiceStack for building a webservice.
Any well-written code regardless of the framework will be able to handle it.
If you are a .NET developer I personally think type safety of C# is important so I would not go down the Azure node.js way since it will also force me to use Azure.
I would personally use ASP.NET Web API.
As long as you build your application on a solid framework, you'll be on the bright side (assuming you know how to set-up such an application in a secure and proper manner). For .NET i'd use the Web API and for node.js i'd stick with something like express/connect.
Just keep in mind that node.js and the frameworks based on it are still subject to heavy changes, whereas ASP.NET is production-safe since years.
As a bottom line, i don't think you're able to say "X is better than Y because of Z" in this scenario. It's a matter of personal preferences, infrastructure and your technical skills.
I'm looking at having thousands of simultaneous connections from mobile phones to the server whereby anytime a user interacts with his cell phone, the data is sent and logged by the server. Also, anytime the server has new information for that user, the server can push that information without a browser refresh. I am wondering what is more stable and how you would build this?
A good real-time framework or infrastructure will have numerous APIs that should let you connect any device, no matter the technology, to the real-time server e.g. an iOS client library for iPhone and iPad, a JavaScript client library for numerous platforms including normal and mobile web, an Android compatible Java library and so on.
An interesting idea might be to choose which ever framework or real-time service suits your needs best and then using something like PhoneGap. But, as #rt2088 says, it depends if you need the notification app to be running as a service on the phone or as a standalone application.
The choice will also depend on whether you want to install, host, maintain and manage the scaling of your own real-time services or not. If not, there are a number of services out there who you could use so you can concentrate on building your application. If you do want to manage your own infrastructure then the Comet Maturity guide could be a good start. It's a little out of date but is still probably the best reference available.
the ability to push new content the
user based on his GPS location which
is "pinged" to our server. Based on
that, we deliver local content. What
frameworks are you talking about?
There are a number of real-time frameworks available at the moment. Some are hosted services and others require installation on your own hardware. The majority of them will come with a bunch of libraries in different technologies that make it easier to get up and running with them e.g. a JavaScript library that wraps the WebSocket object and also manages fallback for web browsers that don't support WebSockets.
I've just created a Real-Time Technologies Guide in which I've listed all the real-time technologies that I could think of and provided a bunch of tags associated with each.
wouldn't a javascript client library
cover all platforms if it is a web
appilcation?
If the application is a web application then yes, a JavaScript library would be all you need for the client application. The server side libraries that you require would depend on the real-time technology you choose.
Best solution to achieve this is to use the WebSocket communication. It is bidirectional asynchronous communication. Currently every browser supports this new standard and plenty of code snippets available. You just have to google it. There are many server and client side frameworks. choose the one best suits to your requirement.
The details of the WebSocket specification is available at -
Websocket specification
Do you need notification when user uses mobile browser of handset or the mobile handset itself (performing non-browser tasks)? Based on that, the framework to record user activity can be selected.
I got a lot of theoretical answers from Google that WCF is better than Web Service etc. etc. But I want to know from the programming and implementation point of view. I am very new to coding and want to know that how do we implement all three of these technologies? How are they different and in which scenario we should used which technologies?
Thank you in advance.
A web service is an API that is hosted for access via a network connection - often the internet - and usually accessed over HTTP (or HTTPS).
WCF is a Microsoft .NET development framework that can be used to implement web services. That is, WCF-services are a subset of all web-services.
Windows services are a separate beast entirely: they are long-running programs that run on your local Windows machine, typically with no user interaction and on system accounts. They are used to handle many things in Windows, from low-level driver functionality to software updates.
You're really comparing apples and oranges. A web service is simply a program that you can "call" using the HTTP protocol. Typically, HTTP requests sent to the service contain some XML describing the method called and any parameters. The response from the service likewise contains XML with the return value and any output parameters. It's a little more complicated than this, but it gives you the basic idea.
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building network services. You can use this framework to build web services if you wish. I suspect that what's tripping you up are the various Visual Studio project templates. You have one for WCF services and one for web services. The web service template builds a web service that runs inside of IIS. The WCF template gives you far more flexibility (you can make a web service as a stand-alone application, for example), but it is far more complicated.
If you're just beginning, I'd start with web service template and IIS-based web services.
MSDN is always a good reference:
Web Service Tutorial:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8wbhsy70%28VS.80%29.aspx
WCF Tutorial:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms734712.aspx
I think its always easier to learn by doing.
Good luck